Riga Comics Festival?

There is no comics festival in Latvia, but this week feels a bit like it... 

Illustration: Zane Zlemeša (excerpt from mini kuš! #28)

2014 was a quite active kuš! year, and now it comes to it's climax. There are two comics exhibition openings, we'll hand out comics awards, there will be a comics reading, portfolio presentations, a comics workshop, live comics music mashups... and it all will be quite international with artists from all Baltic states and Germany attending and drawing.



Here's a "short" overview of the events:

Wednesday 12.11.2014, 19.00, Goethe Institute, Torna iela 1: Opening of the exhibition 'Life is Live' / 'Deutschsprachige Graphic Novels und Comics aus den baltischen Staaten' at the Goethe-Institute. The exhibition presents graphic novels from Germany and comics creators from the Baltic states. / Goethe website (in Latvian) / Facebook event / 

Thurday 13.11.2014, 16.00, Paula Stradiņa Medicīnas vēstures muzejs: Award ceremony for the winners of the Komiksu Konkurss 2014 with the theme Body Factory which we organized together with the Royal Embassy of Belgium in Riga. The jury consisting of Frank Arnauts, Rūta Briede, Pauls Bankovskis, Andrejs Ērglis, Solvita Krese and David Schilter selected the comics from 79 submissions and will award prizes worth over 1100 EUR to the artists of the best three comics. The selected contributors are: Adriāna Roze, Adriāns Kulpe, Anita Rupeika, Elīna Brasliņa, Laura Ķeniņš, Ernests Kļaviņš, Līva Piterāne, Lote Vilma Vītiņa, Māra Drozdova un Zane Zlemeša. / Facebook event /

Friday 14.11.2014, 16.00, Paula Stradiņa Medicīnas vēstures muzejs: Official opening the exhibition „Anatoms. Ķermeņa fabrika” which includes the works of the Komiksu Konkurss 2014. The event is part of the Belgian Days in Riga. / Website /

Friday 14.11.2014, 19.00, KKC, Skolas iela 15: Portfolio presentation and comics reading from Pimo & Rex by German artist Thomas Wellmann and special presentation by Mārtiņš Zutis, with live animations to the music of DJ Kaspars Groševs. / Facebook event /

Saturday - Sunday, Goethe Institute, Torna iela 1: 2-day comics workshop by Thomas Wellmann with participants from Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. the workshop is booked out now.

Saturday, 14.11.2014, 21.00, STARO Riga, Aristīds, Aristida Briāna iela 7: An overhead projector meets 4 artists and a DJ. Special guest drawers from Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Germany - Zane Zlemeša, Akvilė Misevičiūtė, Liisa Kruusmägi and Thomas Wellmann will light up the evening with drawings about factories... / Facebook event /

Well and if this wasn't enough, if you look for more illustration related events, then on Saturday you can go dribbble and attend the Popper opening of their new huge magazine. And hey, yesterday we also released four new mini kuš!. It's not a festival, but still, something's happening here...